Mr Justice Holman permits woman to appeal where
both parties acted in person

Mr Justice Holman has granted permission for a
woman to appeal a financial remedies order after a lack of representation of
either party and of an appointment of an interpreter led to a decision by a
deputy district judge which was objectively unfair.

"It may seem that, in what follows, I am being
critical of the deputy district judge who heard this matter ... I mean no
criticism of her at all. She was faced, as so often occurs since the almost
wholesale abolition of Legal Aid, with two unrepresented litigants in person.
The first language of neither of them is English, and ...the wife in particular
has difficulties with that language. In those difficult circumstances the
deputy district judge clearly did her best ..."

The deputy district judge had concluded:

"I find that not only did the wife enter into
a bigamist [sic] marriage, but that the husband was innocent of the fact ...
The fact of her bigamy and dishonest evidence will be reflected in my
order."

Holman J insisted that an interpreter should be
present at all further hearings in the matter but acknowledged, as noted by
counsel, that even where there is such a direction interpreters sometimes do
not attend.

For a fuller report in The Law Society's Gazette,
please click here. For the judgment,
click here.

Friday, 29 January 2016

[…] Qualified court interpreters are thus an
indispensable part of the justice system, providing a variety of foreign
language and deaf user services. Around 700 requests per day are made for
interpreters by courts and tribunals in England and Wales. The ongoing boycott
of a framework agreement privatising court interpreting services, now in its
fifth year, however, has attracted far less attention than strikes against cuts
by legal aid lawyers and court magistrates. […]

Nearly four years after the outsourcing of courtroom
interpreting to a single contractor, the service continues to fall short of its
key performance target, according to the latest government figures.

Between July and September 2015, Capita Translation
and Interpreting completed 97% of requests for language services, up from 96%
in the previous quarter, but still short of the 98% requirement stated in the
contract.

The Ministry of Justice said this was the highest
success rate since the contract started on 30 January 2012.

Complaints about the service fell from 580 between
April and June last year, to 430 between July and September. The report states
that this represented a 1% complaint rate, the lowest since the contract
commenced.

The most common cause of complaint was that the ‘interpreter
was late’, accounting for 30% of all complaints, an increase of one percentage
point from the previous quarter.

‘No interpreter available’ accounted for 21% of
complaints, compared with 31% in the previous quarter.

The majority of complaints came from tribunals, which
accounted for 61% of all complaints made in the third quarter. The availability
of an interpreter accounted for 1% of the total number of ineffective trials in
the Crown and magistrates’ courts.

A spokesperson for Capita TI said: ’The current
published success rate (ie completed jobs) stands at 97% for the period July to
September 2015, demonstrating that our standards for success rates are high and
we will continue to strive to increase that further.’

The Ministry of Justice said the figures ’show the
highest success rate since the contract began and the rate of complaints was at
its lowest level at just one per cent’.

A spokesperson for the ministry added: ’We are
absolutely committed to further improving performance to ensure a standard of
language services that meets the needs of all those who use the service in the
justice system.’

The present contract will expire on 30 October.
Competition for future contracts began in October last year.

When asked if Capita TI was hoping to carry on
providing interpreter services in the courts and tribunals, its spokesperson
said it would not be appropriate for the organisation to comment at this stage.

Since the ministry introduced a new interpreting
contract in 2012, it says it has spent £38m less on language service fees.

Oral Answers to Questions — Justice – in the
Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:30 pm on 25th January 2016.

Ian McCrea DUP

Mr I McCrea asked the Minister of Justice to state
the cost to the public purse of providing interpreters in police stations for
people who do not speak English as their first language. (AQT 3365/11-16)

David Ford Alliance

Again, whilst Ministers are expected to know quite
a lot for topical Question Time, I do not think that it is realistic to expect
that questions like that can be discussed. He talks about the cost of
interpreters, and there are, of course, costs in the justice system for police
station interviews and potential court proceedings. Those issues are determined
on the basis of the individual's need. I do not carry around in the top of my
head the figures for the total cost last year.

Ian McCrea DUP

Given that other countries across Europe ensure
that, if a person is in that country and does not have the language of that
country as their first language, they have to pay for the provision of an
interpreter and, indeed, bring one with them, does the Minister have a view on
whether that should be considered for Northern Ireland? Should people who require
an interpreter pay to provide one?

David Ford Alliance

I am not sure whether Mr McCrea has had experience
of having to pay for a translation into French, German, Spanish or something
himself. I am not aware of the full pattern across Europe. Certainly, the pattern
of charging for interpretation services is not common to the justice system or,
indeed, other services like the health service in the United Kingdom. It is not
something that I have been considering to date.